Pollen Nation Pokies

Sometimes it seems that a whole pokie has been developed around a clever pun, and while it could well be the case with Pollen Nation, from Microgaming, we won’t hold that against them as this is a fun, cartoon style game which features lots of cute characters across the 5 reels and 25 paylines.

It’s also got an unusual bonus round to break up the run of play, plus scatter wins and a high value wild symbol to give players a little extra buzz.

Off to the Hive

Pollen Nation is unsurprisingly all about bees, although in this world they are all given human attributes, so we see a doctor bee, lifeguard, postman, (post-bee?), and a baby bee among others. Although it’s an older game, the style is perfectly acceptable even today, just don’t expect fancy 3D graphics or animated sequences, while the lack of any background image really makes it show its age.

But everything is clear enough, with colourful payline indicators showing players where each of the 25 lines runs across the reels and a nicely presented game title below them.

Right at the bottom of the game are the control buttons that players use to set their stake from as little as 0.01 which will activate just a single line and excludes any winning combinations that land across the other 24, although scatter wins, where the position of the symbol doesn’t matter, will still count.

To play all lines will cost just 0.25 a spin, and the maximum wager is right up to 250.00, with numerous options in between. All winning combinations, except scatters pay from left to right across active lines on adjacent reels.

The symbols are all based around the theme of bees and what they need to keep busy, with the lower value ones being items such as a beeswax symbol which pays 2x the line bet when just 2 examples land on a line, while getting 5 of them right across the reels will pay 50x. All other symbols will need to land across 3 or more reels to make up a win, with the rest of them consisting of a bowl of Pollen Puffs cereal, a honey comb, pot of honey and a tasty looking royal jelly which pays 8x, 100x or 200x for landing 3, 4 or 5 on a line.

Bigger payouts are awarded with the bees themselves, starting with the postbee, then the doctor bee and the highest value regular symbol is the lifeguard who pays 30x, 200x or 1000x the line bet depending on how many land across the line.

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Bee Bonuses

Although Pollen Nation isn’t exactly packed to the top of the hive with extra features, there are a couple here, the most frequently occurring one being wild substitutions which come from the queen bee symbol substituting for others if she can complete a winning line. She will also pay out the biggest wins of the game, with just 2 wilds being worth 2x the line bet and a full run of 5 paying out 6000x, or 60,000.00 at the maximum stake.

A rather tired-looking bee is a scatter symbol and as well as not needing to land on a line, he also pays out multiples of the total stake per spin, not just the line bet, with 3 scatters being worth 5x, 4 pays 20x and if 5 scatters land at once the result will be an 80x the bet reward.

He doesn’t trigger any bonus round however, as that job is left to the baybee symbol. This cute little critter isn’t actually worth anything on its own, but 3, 4 or 5 landing in any positions will transport players to a honeycomb which has several sections highlighted. The task for players is to click on these sections, filling up the baybees’ bottle with honey as they do so and unveiling prizes at the same time. This carries on until a ‘Stop’ section is found, after which all the wins so far will be added up and paid out.

That’s the only bonus feature here, but it can be a pretty rewarding one.

Any Sting in the Tail?

Pollen Nation is quite a simple pokie but nonetheless manages to look friendly, with amusing characters buzzing around the reels and a decent bet range ensuring that players can earn generous rewards.

Wild substitutions and scatter wins are all quite nice, while the Baybee bonus game has the potential to pay out 3250x the line bet, so it may be simple, but the potential returns are anything but, and some sort of win is guaranteed once this round is triggered.